Choosing your piercer

As a professional piercer who loves piercing, I want you to get pierced safely – even if you don’t come to me. This guide is designed to help would-be piercing clients choose a studio and a piercer that is working safely.

Are you looking to get a new piercing? Or maybe looking for a piercer for your child or teenager? If you’ve already started looking for somewhere to book, you’ll know that there are more places than ever before offering piercing services. But with this added element of choice, there’s also uncertainty – how do you know if the piercer that you choose is going to work safely and do a good job? This handy guide contains some of the most important points to consider when you research where to book.

Is the piercer working out of a registered premises?

Whilst working from home or working mobile can be great for some industries, it’s unsafe for piercers to be working in this way. Piercing studios should meet rigorous hygiene standards that would be impossible to achieve in a home setting.

When a studio opens, the piercer has to register with their local council and meet a series of requirements around hygiene and safety. Our homes simply do not tick all of these health and safety boxes, no matter how clean our houses are.

And on the subject of registration, your piercer should be displaying their certificate of registration with the council in their studio, so you know that they are legally allowed to be performing this service.

Are they using a needle to pierce?

Piercing guns are unsafe, and this includes any recent euphemisms for piercing guns too. Piercing Systems, Sliders, Hand Held Piercing Devices, Cartridge System, Pressure System etc are all still piercing guns and bluntly force jewellery into the body. They also cannot be properly cleaned and sterilised, and the jewellery inserted using the gun is usually low quality and unsuitable for many client’s bodies due to its ‘one size fits all’ approach.

Does the piercer have experience?

This one can be tricky because a piercer with a few years experience who received a good apprenticeship and is working in a good studio could be offering a safer service than somebody who hasn’t updated their education or practice in decades. However, making sure that they haven’t only recently completed a course, and that they are able to show numerous good examples of their work is a good sign that the piercer has enough experience to pierce you.

It’s also important to make sure that a studio is transparent in their advertising / online presence about who their piercer is and which piercings were done by that person. Chain stores (on a national or local scale) can sometimes advertise one professional’s work with no guarantee that they will be the person that you book in with.

Does the piercer continue to learn and grow?

There is more access to information and knowledge for piercers than ever before, so if a piercer isn’t regularly continuing to seek education, this may be a red flag. There are a number of piercing conferences all over the world (with multiple examples here in the UK), where a piercer can continue their education, learn new skills and keep their practice up to date. A good piercer should seek to continue ‘forever learning’ whether they’re two years into their career or two decades.

Piercers should also be up to date with their First Aid and CPR training, as well as revisiting their Blood Borne Pathogens education annually. Sometimes piercers will talk about this on their social media or display certificates in their studio. However, if you’re not sure, you are always welcome to ask! A safe piercer will be more than happy to show you their certificates.

Are they working safely?

There are multiple facets to this, but these are some of the most important points. Some of these are super simple:

Does the premises look clean?

Are they opening sterile packets or an autoclave cassette so that you can be sure they are using sterile jewellery and tools?

Is the room cleaned after every client?

Do they appear to have a good understanding of cross contamination? – a good example of this would be whether they change their gloves at multiple stages during your appointment.

Are they a member of any professional bodies (Association of Professional Piercers (APP), UK Association of Professional Piercers (UKAPP) etc- you can verify their membership by clicking the links)? It’s important to note here that claiming to work to APP/UKAPP standards is only a claim. If they are not listed as a member, those claims may be false.

Although none of these are a 100% guarantee that their work practices will be flawless, they all go a long way to suggesting that a piercer knows how to work safely.

Are they using good quality jewellery?

Professional safe piercing organisations like APP and UKAPP have requirements that include the types of jewellery and the types of materials that the jewellery is made from that their members can use. This means that if a piercer is an APP or UKAPP member, their jewellery is likely to be good quality and suitable for long term wear in the body.

But what if they’re not a member? This becomes trickier, but you can absolutely ask them about the brands that they carry. Most reputable professionals should be happy to communicate this. You can then check the company name against these two links – APP Body Jewelry Verification Program UKAPP Jewellery Verification. However, those lists are not exhaustive, so another approach could be to ask about the materials that the jewellery is made from.

Titanium should be implant grade and therefore should be ASTM-f136 or ASTM-f-1295 with the supplier being able to prove it. Steel should be ASTMF-138 and gold should be solid gold (nothing plated or coated) and either 14 karat or 18 karat. Anything less than 14 karat gold is unsuitable for healing. Avoid places that use meaningless buzzwords such as ‘hypo-allergenic’ ‘medical titanium’ or ‘surgical steel’ – these are all made up terms to make their jewellery sound higher quality than it is.

Also, consider the cost. If it’s too cheap, it’s always going to be too good to be true. Studios selling low quality jewellery often make more profit per piercing than reputable studios because their jewellery is so cheap to get in stock.

Are their policies above board?

Do they ask you to fill in consent forms and ask for proof of age? Do they ask for parental consent (with ID and the parent/legal guardian present) for piercings on minors? If they don’t, they are putting profit over client safety. This could (and most likely will be) an entire blog post in itself, but avoiding asking young (and young looking) clients to prove their age is one of the biggest red flags possible.

Can you see plenty of examples of the piercer’s work?

We touched on this earlier, but the piercer that you choose should have plenty of examples of their work on their website or social media for you to look at ahead of time. If a studio regularly posts their availability, but not regular photos of their work, or if they regularly recycle the same images in posts over several weeks or months, this may be a red flag that their work is below par or they aren’t as experienced as they claim.

Is piercing an add-on service for them?

Whilst there are exceptions to this, if one individual service provider offers a long list of services plus piercing, it may be worth considering whether their experience level is suitable. This is especially the case if many of those services are unrelated to piercing, such as beauty treatments, nails, massage, tanning, hair dressing etc. One single practitioner trying to offer too many services may not be up to date with everything they need in order to pierce safely.

There are so many factors that go into what makes a piercing safe, so this is by no means an exhaustive list. However, considering all of these points when you choose to get pierced will serve you very well in choosing a professional who is reputable and working safely.

One final thought…a reputable piercer is going to be happy to answer your questions about how they work, what type of jewellery they use, their experience level etc. It’s always ok to ask! And if they’re unwilling to answer, it’s always ok to go elsewhere!

About Me: My name is Becky Crossan and I am a professional piercer and one of the co-owners of Inkhaus Tattoo and Piercing. I have over 12 years piercing experience and I am a member of the Association of Professional Piercers (APP) and the UK Association of Professional Piercers (UKAPP). I am also a current UKAPP board member, serving as the organisation’s president at the time of writing.

Save this for future reference or send it to a friend who is looking to get pierced!